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Bookshelves

I've seen this idea on a few blogs but I'm afraid I can't for the life of me remember which ones. But thankyou to whoever had the idea. What a great way of perking up your décor without spending any money at all.

There are of course massive disadvantages to arranging one's books by colour, the biggest being that you can't find anything. I've kept the right hand shelf for cookbooks only as these are the ones I read most often and I want to be able to find them easily. Another disadvantage is that any new addition to your library will necessitate more book moving, also very large books have to be accommodated elsewhere if they won't fit onto the relevant shelf. Still, it was fun to do and very pleasing. It's going to drive C mad, but since he only owns about ten of these books he'll have to live with it. I like it :o)

Update

Reaction to new book arrangement.

C: Where's my Ellen Macarthur book?

Me: On the shelf, I've arranged them according to colour.

C: You mean I've got to remember what colour it is.

Me: Yes

C: Does it matter where I put it back?

Later, after dinner I notice a yellow book in the middle of my pink cookbooks.

'Who did that?'

Sniggers come from elder son.

: :

Continued heartfelt thanks for all your wonderful comments. I appreciate each and every one of them and get a thrill everytime I see that a new comment has been left :o))

PS

I've remembered where I saw this idea it was here at Quilt While You're Ahead.

I used to do this, but since moving in with Tim and inheriting even more books, we have gone for trying to place them by "topic" because otherwise we really would never find anything (we recently had a clear out and took 3 massive boxes of books to the charity shop and we still have too many books to fit on the book cases!!)

Hi Sue. Surely this sytem would only work if you only have a few books? I have about three and a half thousand (100 of which are on cookery - I had a purge) and in normal circumstances they are arranged strictly by category. I say normal circumstances because I haven't yet had time to arrange the books properly in the new house and it's driving me bonkers. I found a Ben Elton in the middle of Science the other day and I practically ran to the novel shelf, with a slight pain in the chest. There is probably an acronym for this condition but if you weren't so obviously lovely I would consider this system to be the work of the devil and all his little wizards. WH x

Looks lovely - but have to admit that I did laugh to read your update and your eldest son's antics.......

Have to admit I am a bit of a category person though - I have a tallbookcase in the kitchen that is mostly cookbooks (despite my family's best efforts to hijack it for other things). Actually I seem to have a worrying theme of correlating the sort of books to the room they're in....

I too am particular about how the books go on the shelf. They must be at the edge of the shelf (so no dust can settle) and they must be just so. My cherries are sour morellos, I can stand them but no one else can. Hence jam, cakes and pie are the best option. I was relying on you for a recipe too. Any non jam suggestions?

Like the ideabut, think it would drive me mad in the end with all of the odd sized ones and ones that don't fit into the right colours. Anyway, my children are not known for their putting back. It might have to stay as it is. How abot cherry Vodka or some kind of chutney??

Perhaps it was Sarah London's blog where she arranged her books by color???!!! I would be seriously demented to arrange by color...I would spend the rest of my life looking for the right book! lol I do love the way it looks though! Your eldest son is my kind of guy! funny!